It is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in enormous numbers across Ireland, typically dated to the Bronze Age. The characteristic mound of fire-cracked stone accumulates over time as rocks are repeatedly heated in a fire and then plunged into a water-filled trough to bring it to the boil, a process that eventually renders the stones useless and sees them piled to one side. Thousands of these sites have been recorded across the country, yet each one still marks a specific moment of sustained human activity at a particular spot in the land.

The site at Loughlea sits roughly thirty metres east of a well, a proximity that is entirely typical. Fulachtaí fia are almost always found close to a reliable water source, since the whole process depends on a ready supply. What makes this particular location quietly notable is that a second fulacht fia lies approximately fifty metres to the south-east. Two such sites in close proximity raises questions that cannot easily be answered from the surface alone: whether they were used at the same time or in different periods, by the same group or different ones, for cooking or for some other purpose such as hide-working or bathing, all of which have been proposed by researchers over the years. The burnt mounds themselves do not say.